Belle pics

[Terry]

Photos taken May 5th of Memphis Belle over Seattle.

http://seattletimes.com/html/picturethis/2023538843_themoviememphisbellefliesoverseattle.ht ml

[andersel]

Nice pics! You are one lucky pup.

[PRB]

Nice pics!

[Wittpilot]

I kept telling myself I would update our tour here at the Outhouse better this year..... Unfortunately real life stuff has pretty much taken over everything..

Us getting into Seattle is a pretty big deal... For various reasons, it has not been feasible for us to go there... Fortunately we were able to make it happen this year!

-witt

[Landman]

In the first picture the man appears to be standing in the radio operator's compartment with his head out of the opening where there is normally a window on top of the fuselage aft of the top turret. Does that window slide open or is it just missing altogether? I thought it didn't open because there is normally a Browning .50 cal mounted in the center of it facing upwards. Or does just a portion of it slide open?

[Wittpilot]

In the first picture the man appears to be standing in the radio operator's compartment with his head out of the opening where there is normally a window on top of the fuselage aft of the top turret. Does that window slide open or is it just missing altogether? I thought it didn't open because there is normally a Browning .50 cal mounted in the center of it facing upwards. Or does just a portion of it slide open?


From memory I can't remember if all models were the same, but I know in G's at least the gun folds down, and the whole window slides up on rails.
I know I read later on in the war they just took the gun out of the radio room because there were a lot gunners taking off the tail!

[Wittpilot]

Very cool view...

7922

[stansdds]

Seems to me that the E, F, and early G's had a metal framed plexiglass hatch that would be slid over the opening once the flexible 50 cal. was stowed. Later G's had the 50 cal mounted in a socket in the hatch.

[Landman]

Yeah that's what got me thinking. I made a large model of a G when I was a kid and it had the .50 in what appeared to be a socket right in the middle of that window.

[Wittpilot]

Here is a good example of how the gun would have been stowed. This is from My Gal Sal so its an example of an earlier model.

7929

[limjack]

This just sucks, she is on my doorstep and I had to go to Portland to to give my mother and father in law some love for a few days. Oh well. Perhaps next time. Thanks for the info wittpilot. Very cool you are part of this aircraft team.

Jim

[Daveroo]

Hey Whitt?..did the plane stop at all in northern california?....last i had looked on the trip thing,,it had a few socal spots ..but nothing for norcal...aand i never heard anyhing either.